Following months of legal wrangling, injunctions and appeals, Samsung and Apple will face off in a federal court in San Jose today. The two companies accuse each other of patent and design infringement, with Apple seeking more than $2.5bn in damages, and Samsung looking to claim royalties for five of its own patents.

The narrative is all too familiar -- Apple accuses Samsung of being a "copycat" and imitating its products and inventions rather than coming up with its own stuff. Samsung counters that Apple's claims are overly broad, and that its actions are anti-competitive and monopolistic.

Apple will argue that Samsung has copied its patented designs, and that Samsung's products, in both hardware and software, are "confusingly similar" to the iPhone and iPad. It's a tactic which has been met with some success, notably in the German courts, over the past year. However, it's backfired in the UK, where a High Court judge recently ruled that Samsung did not copy Apple's iPad designs, and ordered Apple to take out ads to this effect.

So we're in for yet more claims and counterclaims, with the certainty of appeals to follow whatever verdicts the court reaches. So strap yourself in, and prepare for endless back and forth lawyerin' over the coming weeks. As our own Jerry Hildenbrand noted in his recent editorial, this is just the way things have to be in the mobile tech world in 2012. Let's just hope that whatever the decision, it doesn't impact consumers' freedom to choose the phone they want.

These lawsuits need to end. Most of the tech in BOTH devices was developed at taxpayer funded research labs. The basic idea of a touchscreen pad was developed on Star Trek, and some of the patents they are arguing over are just plain common sense (did they really let someone patent the idea of tapping a phone number to call someone?)

The law is a good thing, but if we don't keep our thumb on it, it will run out of control and crush innovation.

Interested to know the breakdown of the jurors and what phone they have.

I hate all this stuff, but it does seem that since the patent system is so broken this is "the way it is" and companies "have an obligation to their stockholders" to defend their patents no matter how silly.

Most of the things like universal search and the like are lame, but I do think Apple has a leg to stand on when it comes to "patent redress" because on the most basic of levels the OG Galaxy looks quite a bit like a 3Gs. And touchwiz *shudder* looked altogether iPhony. Funy to think how Samsung could have avoided much of their trouble by simply shipping (nearly) stock AOSP Android.

How can they look alike when one phone is made of glass & metal and the other is made of black plastic. Apple has only an icon grid and the Android phone has an app drawer with widgets and multiple form factors. One has an Apple icon on the back and the other has the word SAMSUNG written on the back and front.

The shape and size of each phone are different, the icons are different, and the materials of which each phone are composed are different. The software, features, and capabilities of each phone are drastically different.

"clean lines" is the best one. Really, the idea of a design patent for "clean lines" is downright humorous but our patent system went ahead with it anyway. Not to pick sides, but I am hoping that Samsung's attorneys are ready to drop some bombs like "oh here is the same stupid ******* thing from apple's patent but it's 15 years old". They better be prior-arting all up in that place. It should at least serve to point out how absurd a lot of the patents are. Then again, the case is on Apple's home turf so I wouldn't be surprised if everything went Apple's way even if they aren't right about this.

Best Voir dire ever. "Juror number 1, are you an apple fanboy? What would you say if I told you that single button mice are for idiots?" "Juror number two, since you own an android phone, do you pirate apps like a boss?"

Don't jinx them with that crap lol Besides, if there were a hypothetical invisible entity with magic powers that made the entire known Universe with the billions and billions of galaxies, do you think he/she/IT would care about this little trial? lol uh, NO; That's like Tebow thinking IT cares about how he plays in a football game... lol

Oh he cares! God fights evil in all of it's forms, and Apple is a big big part of that. Also, no one said he is invisible. Or magical. You threw that in to make it sound more absurd. That's your problem not everyone elses. At any rate, we're all pulling for Samsung to open a can on these fools.

Apple feels threatened, nothing more. Its iDevices are paying its bills, and Samsung -- and android as a whole -- clearly threaten that. It makes little to no money on its other devices: macs are an overpriced niche product, iTunes is slowly dying to other digital distributors (except on mobile devices, again), and OSX -- at least in my personal opinion -- is trash and they are scraping the bottom of the barrel for "revolutionary" new features.

Does the Ford company have a patent for "automobile with 4 wheels"? I think they should look into that...I don't know the answer to vague patent descriptions but it needs to go. Companies have the right to patent their products (yes, stolen or not...) but there's a fine line between innovative patents and the kind of crap Apple is arguing in court - which as Samsung rightfully says IS "anti-competitive and monopolistic" (I also can't grasp my mind around Apple really "inventing" those patents described above - they just had to have bought them or stole the ideas - they don't know how to be innovative). This will be interesting.

That actually happened, except against Ford (see the Selden v Ford case of 1904) in a similarly ridiculous fashion. In that case the patent holder didnt even make cars! Perhaps one of the earliest big-time patent trolls. Yes, the system has been broken for a long long time.